


Pandora's Box

by StellaMachiavelli



Series: Drabble Dimanche [1]
Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-23 23:54:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/627934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StellaMachiavelli/pseuds/StellaMachiavelli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One question keeps plaguing Lestat and it's one he keeps putting to Louis: does he really want to know the answer?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pandora's Box

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Drabble Dimanche at VC_Media: http://vc-media.dreamwidth.org/profile

He has pulled away from me, curled up on a chair near the window. He is the very picture of feline anger, his naked form sleek and guarded, his almond-shaped eyes the colour of fiery absinthe in the darkness.  
  
"Come now,' I say reasonably. "You don't have to be like this. It was just a question."  
  
"It's _the_ question. You always come back to it."  
  
I shrug. "You never answer it."  
  
"Can't you lay it to rest?" he asks, and his face is tragically pleading.  
  
I crack my knuckles (he winces: he hates when I do that). "If I say I shall, will you believe me?"  
  
He scowls. "No, Lestat. I don't."  
  
"Then tell me and we can lay it to rest. We can heal and move on."  
  
"I've already moved on. Aren't I here, with you? Ah, I see that look in your eyes. You know I can't stand your petty jealousies! I thought you were dead. If anything happens to you, must I be the stoic? Or perhaps I should follow you into the flames of hell?"  
  
I grin at him, showing my fangs. "Now we both know that'll never happen. You never made good on your show of devotion the last few times you left me to certain death."  
  
He throws up his hands. "I give up. Always this -- this devolving into the same old argument. Fine, I shall tell you." He fixes me with such a savage glare that I momentarily freeze. "And afterwards, you can rage all you want. And just so you know, as soon as it's done, I'm going to stay in a hotel for a while, and be away from you, and you have earned it."  
  
"So I'll have the flat to myself for a week or so," I say flippantly. "I'll walk about naked and play music as loud as I want."  
  
"You do that anyway." He smiles despite himself.  
  
"I do so love you," I say, but it's without conviction. I love him, but I am merely saying it to turn him soft on me again. "Indulge me, won't you? For all those years I spent in the mud while you partied with Jim Morrison and marched with Forrest Gump against Vietnam."  
  
"I'd rather tell you about those times," he says softly. "San Francisco back then was one of the least terrible times in my life."  
  
"And fucking Armand?"  
  
I don't know why I spoil it. I guess I like the way his features twist in anger again.  
  
"Fine," he rasps. "The first time I fucked Armand. The first time I fucked another vampire. Perhaps I will tonight! Perhaps I'll finally tell you the story."  
  
"No embellishments now," I say, my voice laced with poison.  
  
"I never embellish," he says. "Call me a liar all you want. I see the things you don't."  
  
"And fuck the people I won't," I remind him.  
  
"You've had other lovers," he says coldly. "You'll have other lovers."  
  
I wave that away. "We've talked about this many times. It's one of my charming character flaws. It's not natural in one such as yourself, though."  
  
"Oh, grow up. I won't entertain this conversation."  
  
"Just tell me where you first fucked him."  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
I bite my lip to prevent myself from laughing in his face. "You heard me," I say.   
"I've had enough," he mutters. "Enough of this silliness, Lestat. I'm serious now; let it go. I won't tell you. I'm sleeping in my own room tonight."  
  
"No, don't." I reach out, grab his hand. "I'm sorry I offended you. God knows I'll keep doing it. But let's not pretend this isn't a question that won't come up in our eternity again and again. Just tell me about it, what happened, all those years ago. I promise I'll let it go."  
  
"We both know that's a lie."  
  
"It's like Dorian Gray, isn't it?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"It's worse in my imagination. It probably wasn't all that much, but I imagine all these lewd things and suchforth and if you knew how it torments me." I smile. "It's really rather ridiculous, I know."  
  
"Yes," he says slowly. "It is."  
  
"Then humor me, won't you?"  
  
"Prague," says Louis. "It was in Prague." He quirks me an unhappy smile. "I thought you'd understand that I wanted to forget."

*********************************

Armand had insisted they visit Prague, which in those days was part of what was called Bohemia. It was 1901 and there was a new opera opening there, a whimsical story of a water nymph, Rusalka, who was in love with a human prince. Armand was always fond of these stories, and Louis was docile and passive even then, and so they went to Prague.  
  
It was a cold March, and the winter weather became Armand, as always. Louis may have closed up on his tutor but he was (and still is) easily spellbound by Armand. It's not Armand's fault that Louis is so gullible, I guess.  
  
I'm not interested in his Doctor Zhivago love affair. I don't want to hear five-hour descriptions of cherubs and all that shit from Armand's stories. I wave him on. He tells me of how lonely he was at that time, and how he was convinced I was ashes as Claudia was, and I tell him I don't want excuses: it's done. Just tell me how and when and later, maybe, we'll talk about why.  
  
I imagine him opening his legs slowly, that wretch crawling to -- he's shorter than Louis, for fuck's sake! How unerotic! But I know he would have been in charge, I just know it.  
  
He says Armand had been courteous, but of course he was no innocent (with a grim smile, he tells me his innocence was lost when Paul's head split open on those brick stairs, and it takes me some time to rouse him from _that_ whirlwind of self-indulgent guilt). They had avoided Paris, of course, but freedom and truth and beauty and all that splendid homosocial and homosexual love finally caught up with them.  
  
He says, delicately, that he was no longer caught in such a mortal morass about making love to another man.  
  
Fucking another man, I say.  
  
Fine, he concedes. Fucking.  
  
And then he tells me about it, quickly, unromantically. I can't even make light of it and I weigh up his poisonous words long after he's dressed himself and stomped out of the flat:  
  
Armand is a great seducer, and eternally patient. The seduction is tender and polite, but there comes a point when he has to verbally agree that yes, it's time. Yes, he wants this. Armand asks him if he knows what it entails: they will go further than they ever have. It's not as hurried as when humans perform the act, but it can still be messy. And ugly, with the blood.  
  
He retires to the bathroom and undresses. He catches himself in the mirror and though _Finnegans Wake_ won't be published for nearly forty years yet, he does indeed have that moment of self-reflection, staring at himself in the mirror. He knows the melancholy in his green eyes doesn't reflect the roiling unhappiness within him, but he also knows he looks dashing in this low light, and that he'd do anything to _feel_ lately. He feels like that wretched water nymph, drowning.  
  
He is mortified to feel a blush creeping up his neck when he enters in the room in his bathrobe, to see Armand already naked. He, Louis, has murdered and stolen and done the most deplorable, base things, and yet he closes his eyes as Armand slowly pulls the bathrobe from him and leads him to the bed.  
  
He'd always expected, deep within his poisoned heart, that Lestat would be the first one. Perhaps Lestat would have forced him eventually; he can't be sure. It's a feeling deep within him, in his very bones, in the pulsing blood within him that is Lestat's, Lestat's, Lestat's; he belongs to Lestat. He was made for this, for Lestat.  
  
It could have been so different.  
  
 _It's your fault_ , he thinks waspishly. _What's about to happen is all your fault, Lestat._  
  
They kiss, as they have always done. They touch each other, as they have always done. But now they are fully undressed, and the shock of Armand's warm skin against his own flesh is so blatant and erotic that he finally loses himself in pleasure. They take their time.  
  
***  
  
"Fuck, Louis! Is this really necessary? I don't want a pornographic version."  
  
He swallows. "You wanted to know, didn't you?"  
  
"No. Just hurry it along."  
  
"Fine."  
  
"Just one thing."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Is he better than me? At foreplay?"  
  
He closes his eyes. "Shut up. You only get one set of  
truths tonight."  
  
***  
It starts awkwardly. It's all too serious, and he doesn't know where he should put his legs, or how to relax. Armand guides him gently.  
  
"I don't quite understand the mechanics of it," he says apologetically.  
  
Armand runs a hand down his side, squeezing the flesh just below his ribs. "It's as natural as death. Let me show you."  
  
"Have you done this before?"  
  
"Of course," says Armand. "Many times with the coven. Haven't you?"  
  
The words are calculated to hurt, and Louis casts him a sly look. "You know I haven't."  
  
"No."  
  
"Does that please you?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
They don't talk again. The inevitable rush, it's all too soon. He wants to protest and push Armand away when his lover settles between his legs. And then it's too late.  
  
The pain is alien, completly alien. He's surprised at how hard it is to accommodate Armand. He hadn't expected him to be so well-endowed: his length is average, but the girth of his cock causes Louis to hiss in pain.  
  
He feels lost as his body relaxes and Armand slides into him easily. He closes his eyes. So. It's done. It wasn't Lestat. It will never, ever be Lestat. For one moment, he considers telling Armand to pull out; they've gone too far.  
  
A dark thrill runs through him. Armand looks so young. It doesn't feel right, somehow, to be ravished by someone who looks like that, knowing old soul be damned.  
Armand has given him so many answers: how can he deny him this one thing?  
  
He is passive as his companion strains above him. He closes his eyes, listens to Armand's breathing. They come together in silence.  
  
When Armand has spent himself within Louis, he lays in the dark, turned away. He doesn't know if he'll try it again.  
  
He washes himself in the bathroom, wipes away the scent of Armand on him, within him. There. He's given Armand something back for the revelations over the last few months. It's just his body, after all.  
  
He bites into his own wrist, the way he has seen Lestat do countless times. He shudders as he licks his own blood, Lestat's blood, and his maker constantly with him.  
  
***  
  
"And there you have it," says Louis. "The romance of a century, non?" He opens his eyes. "Am I newly profaned?"  
  
I scowl. "Never. It's as much as I expected. But I don't believe he has a bi--"  
  
"No. I will not talk about this any more." He stands up, reaches for his bathrobe.  
  
(What color was the bathrobe, you bastard? Do you think of him when we're together? Why would you sleep with him, and not me in those first years, when I loved you so fiercely and desperately and you had to have known?)  
  
"Where are you going?" I ask.  
  
"I told you. I'm going to a hotel. I need to be alone for a while."  
  
"Louis!"  
  
I stand up reach for him, and he pulls away.  
  
"I thought you'd understand," he says heavily, "that it meant nothing at all."  
  
"But I do!"  
  
He regards me solemnly. "Perhaps you do. But it means everything to you, and your pathetic obsession with him. Let me be, Lestat. I will return to you once you've healed over."  
  
"There's nothing to heal!" I roar.  
  
He hesitates, then kisses me on the cheek before leaving. He slams the door shut behind him. It's not like him to give in to such blatant displays of temper.  
  
Later that night, when I feel the anger spark to life within me and I storm into his room and tear some choice things apart, I decide he was wise to leave. He knows me better than I know myself. And I know -- I hope -- that in a week's time when I'm contrite and stalking him and begging him to come home, he'll understand why he shouldn't have told me a damned thing in the first place.


End file.
